


If Not For Everything

by melancholyPathway



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, College, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-22
Updated: 2013-07-12
Packaged: 2017-12-09 06:04:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/770834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melancholyPathway/pseuds/melancholyPathway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After being stuck with Rose and a few trolls traveling through space for three years, Dave has become frustrated and resentful. This game is stupid, these aliens are stupid, and the fact that he undoubtedly misses his best friend more than he can handle is definitely stupid. All he wants is for none of this to ever have happened - after all, he and his three best friends could have had happy, normal lives if they'd never have met. He never expected to get what he wanted and hate it. </p>
<p>(Eventual JohnDave, rated T for Dave's mouth)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Wishing Could Be Considered Ironic, Right?

**Author's Note:**

> Wow. I've never written a Homestuck fanfiction and it's been almost a year since I wrote my last published fic. Also, I'm trying something new with this~ Kind of a choose-your-own adventure story, but I'll try not to make the chapters so short there's a decision after every paragraph. I just want feedback one way or the other to continue the story in whatever direction is most popular. Thanks for reading and going along with me! -Hailey

“I wish _none_ of this had ever happened!” you yell, releasing your pent up frustration rather unfairly toward your biological sister, only half-sober. There are tears in your eyes and you can’t remember the last time you cried. It frustrates you that you can’t hold this back anymore. You’re sure the others have probably heard you yelling at Rose, but except for Kanaya, who might come to defend her girlfriend if she suspected malicious intent, you’re pretty sure no one will bother you. After all, these are _human_ troubles. Who else would care but the two of you?

“What – what happened?” Rose asks, and she looks genuinely curious, causing you to think that maybe she isn’t too drunk to remember the last three years. She’s asking what’s caused you to lose your control so completely and drop your coolkid attitude in favor of tears and resentment.

“Are you kidding me, Rose?!” you yell anyway. “All of this has happened. All of this is _infuriating_. Why the hell did it have to be the four of us? The sixteen of us, counting them,” you say, meaning the trolls. “Why couldn’t it have been some other stupid kids?”

“I dunno, Dave. That’s just howwit is, I guess,” Rose shrugs. “And now we gotta deal with it an’ stuff.”

“Well _I_ can’t deal with it anymore,” you tell her shortly. You cross your arms firmly and look away, unable to look at her sway a bit on her feet. “Whatever,” you amend, quieter. “I’ll just…I’ll be in my room.”

Rose murmurs something as you leave, but you ignore it, already halfway down the hall. You hear a door behind you and Kanaya’s voice, and you guess that she’s consoling Rose. It doesn’t matter to you right now. She won’t remember this tomorrow.

Inside your room, you fall onto your bed with as much anger as you can. It’s not the bed’s fault, or Rose’s fault that you’re angry and hurt. You guess it’s John’s. But it’s yours, too.

A year and a month or two before you and your three best friends started playing the fucking stupidest game ever created, your bro John told you that he wanted to make sure you didn’t forget his birthday. He’d made you a crappy little application thing that would pop up on the desktop of your computer on April 13th with a Ghostbusters animation (that he definitely hadn’t made, his “programming skills” were practically nonexistent), reminding you that it was his birthday and you should probably say something. You hadn’t told him that you’d never forget his birthday; he was too excited about his application.

The problem was that you’d never disabled it. Even through the transformation your computer had underwent to become your shades, it retained its programs and downloads. So the day that this idiotic adventure started, it popped up the moment you turned on your computer. That was fine, whatever. The second year, your first on this meteor with the other chucklefucks, Rose had been borrowing your shades while you took an ironic nap, and she simply closed out of the pop-up when she saw it, knowing you’d remembered. The third, it popped up but you had your eyes closed – you’d spent that day fulfilling a dare from Karkat to be “blind” the whole day and see how well you could cope with no environment as opposed to a darkened one. But this year you weren’t able to avoid the unwelcome reminder.

The third year on this godforsaken meteor, feeling so close to the end of one trip and the beginning of the next, was frustrating. Despite the other six occupants of the meteor, it was so much lonelier than the last two. Maybe it was because this year, you didn’t have your sister to talk to, as she was too drunk and too into her girlfriend. You and Terezi hadn’t had a thing since you confronted her about Gamzee, and she was just as bad at Rose about seemingly not being coherent at any time. The Mayor couldn’t talk. Any chatter, mostly about Can Town, was nearly all one-sided and empty. Karkat was the only bro you had anymore, but he just didn’t… _understand._ He had problems of his own that I didn’t get, and it was the same in reverse. I got that. But it was lonely, still.

Before, if you were even _half_ this upset, you would just talk to John. You don’t remember a single time that he didn’t answer when you were in some sort of distress, like he always knew when you needed him. Like when you got your ass kicked by Bro and you thought you might have broken your back. Or when you had mono in sixth grade and you were out of school for weeks. He’d always been there. And now he wasn’t, and fuck, that pissed you off.

Lying on your bed isn’t good enough for you anymore – something needs to hurt as much as you do. You instantly spot the metal box that’s been with you since you entered the medium. You had first figured it was one of the several pieces of overly-fake-looking sci-fi machinery Jade had deployed in your apartment, but the last time you went back to the room you’d lived in most of your life, you noticed something about the box that you hadn’t taken time to care about before: not only did the box have no buttons, switches, panels or, apparently, any way to open it at all, but the box had a slight…glow emanating from it. Magic wasn’t real, you reasoned. But at the time, you thought of Rose’s magicky crystal ball shit and thought, _Maybe_. So you took it with you.

It’s rather large, a cube about eight by eight by eight inches, but it wasn’t difficult to captchalogue it and forget about it until you started settling in with the trolls. But then there were other things to worry about – back when the meteor had more life, and everyone on it wasn’t so drunk or downhearted. So you’d dumped it in the corner.

Now it just reminds you of your situation – useless, unnecessarily complicated, dull and lifeless. It makes you think of yourself, cold and shut out and untouched. That pisses you off even more. The next thing you know, you’re kicking the stupid box as hard as you can. The force you put into your kick is much more than necessary: the box caves in almost completely on one side and you fall backwards. Your foot only hurts a little, not nearly as much as you expected, and your attack seems almost passive-aggressive, which releases no tension and only frustrates you further. But you give up. What the fuck, right? Tomorrow would be April 14th, and nothing would be wrong. Or, alternatively, you’d land in the next session, which was something to be excited about.

Why are you so upset, anyway? You’ll see him soon. So soon, it’s unreal. Seeing John, something that’s been so important to you almost since you first started talking to him, is so close. You should be excited, not frustrated.

You shake your head at yourself, feeling stupid. You’ve been overreacting all day. You’ll have to apologize to Rose tomorrow, and maybe to Kanaya for leaving her to take care of your sister.

You fall back down on your bed and you’re asleep within minutes. You wonder what your first witty words to John will be. You think you want to make him laugh. That’d be fitting, considering how little of it you’ve been doing yourself.

That thought brings you quickly back to your more morose thoughts. _If we’d never have met_ , you think sullenly, _we never would have played that stupid game._ You roll over. _I wish – I wish we were college kids. At a place in our lives where we were moving and living. I wish the trolls weren’t trolls, I mean – aliens? Really? I wish we’d never met…_

 

You don’t see it, but just after your consciousness drifts away, the box’s glow intensifies. The caved-in side of the box tries to fix itself as it always does when it gets a bit broken. The metal’s extremely malleable, after all, and easy to damage. It needs a defense mechanism. But the injury caused to the box by an extremely angry Strider foot is giving the box some pause – there’s a crack. It doesn’t know how to fix that. Just dents. How can it mend itself? It only knows how to bend.

The box fixes what it can, and gives up. The crack stays, then. Something begins leaking out of the crack. If you were awake and saw the substance, you might freak out. It’s something weird, a liquid that shines and almost…sparkles. Like some kind of girly makeup. But it’s black, making it look like liquid sky, the same kind of sky you’ve looked at apathetically for years.

If you could see it, you wouldn’t have a good feeling about the box. And you shouldn’t. You know how wrong some of Rose’s experiments went, back in the day. But you don’t know that Rose borrowed the box to get rid of a particular experiment, a mix of magic and her alchemy, that she hoped one day to get back to. You don’t know that she was temporarily storing it somewhere she thought no one would find it. You don’t know that it’s dangerous.


	2. You Only Wish You Were High

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You got what you wanted. What now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, here's the real first chapter, with your first decision at the end of it. Hope I've got Bro in-character enough, but...he never talked in canon, soo... Anyway.
> 
> Edit: Guys, I really need feedback or I can't write the next chapter...

When you wake up, the first thing you notice is a lot of light. God _damn_ , why is there so much light in here? You’re used to seeing green light from the Sun fairly often, but this is like – light. Then you realize: _maybe we’ve landed._ Surely the others would have woken you up…? But what if they’re having a party with John without you? That thought sends your eyes wide open. And then you stop. Stop thinking, stop breathing…stop.

You’re in your room. Your bedroom. Not the one on the meteor, with its cold walls and boring decoration. The bedroom you slept in for years. You blink. _Oh_. You’re dreaming. Obviously. Well, you might as well enjoy it while it lasts.

You look over to your makeshift table next to the bed, reaching for your shades to block out this awful light hurting your eyes. You pause again. They’re Bro’s shades. Not yours, the ones you got from John on your thirteenth birthday. The triangular, ironically anime shit shades. You quickly glance around, but you don’t see yours, so you put on the anime shades. Grateful for the shade, you walk over to the window and pull down the shade. It’s fine later in the afternoon to have the window open, but in this morning light, it’s brutal.

You’re surprised – your dreams have never been this real. You can feel perfectly the pull of the shade in your hand, the press of the bridge of your shades on your nose. You can feel that your hair is messed up, and that will _have_ to be fixed, but first you have to know what day it is. It’ll help you get a feeling for this dream, you think. Maybe making it too real will snap you out of it and you’ll wake up.

The desktop sits where it always has and you turn it on, thinking to yourself that your shades take a lot less time to boot up for use. When the computer has woken itself up and everything is loaded, you look at the time and date.  It’s 11:23 AM, April 14th…2014? That can’t be right.

Okay, you decide, this is too screwy. Time to get up. No more of this. By the time you get out of this stupid dream, you guys will probably have landed and you can see John and everything will be okay again. Being in your old room is uncomfortable. It’s too nostalgic and, you have to admit, more than a little freaky. Still, you weren’t sure you’d ever see it again, so you take a sweeping look around. Then you slam your head into the computer desk.

You groan in pain, not having expected that to hurt so—Oh fuck. This isn’t—But how could it not be? What? This is…real.

You shut off the monitor and look at your face in the black screen, the closest you have to a mirror in your bedroom. Unable to see enough, you rip off your shades and glare at yourself, perplexed. You’ve matured a lot in the three years since you hopped aboard your ride to the next session. Your face got longer, you lost the last of your baby fat, not being able to go outside has faded your freckles some, and your eyes are more startlingly red. But your reflection in the monitor is slightly different. You still look older, but…well, you look older still. Your freckles aren’t faded, and in fact, there are probably more of them than there ever have been. Your hair is long, almost an inch below your ears, and still very, very blond. You have – oh motherfucking – you have ear piercings. Were they…were they supposed to be ironic? You have no idea, but you’re rather horrified. Your teeth are straighter – they’ve never been as bad as Egbert’s, but now it looks as if you’ve had braces. Which you haven’t. Why the hell do you look so different?

A crazy thought begins to form in your head. What if…what if landing in the next session sort of…voided everything that had happened? What if everything was normal? Although, that didn’t really explain why you were older and different. Seriously, what was going on here…? But if your theory was correct, or even somewhere in the realm of possibility, then what about the other guys? John, Rose, Jade, and all the trolls? Were they back in their homes, too?

You turn the monitor back on and click the Pesterchum icon. There’s only one handle on your chumroll, and you don’t recognize it. Seriously, what kind of handle is “noobPwner”? And why the hell is it on your list of chums? You’re pretty sure you wouldn’t consider anyone with such a stupid handle a chum.

You shake your head. Whatever. Crazy shit is happening this morning, and you guess you’ve just gotta roll with it. You click “add chum” and type “EctoBiologist.” Not only is John the first person you want to talk to right now, but you are also very interested in seeing if he’s going through…whatever you’re going through.

**\-- turntechGodhead [** ** TG ** **] began pestering ectoBiologist [** **EB** **] at 11:27 --**

**TG: hey egbert  
TG: uh is there crazy shit happening at your place or what**

You wait for a minute for a reply, and when you don’t get one, you start to panic. You were _just_ remembering last night that John always answered when you were upset. He couldn’t make a liar out of you now.

**** TG: john seriously  
TG: dont fuck with me bro i need to know if youre home  
TG: like home home  
TG: now is not the best time to be ignoring me

You take a deep breath, trying to stop from completely flying off the handle. You run a hand through your hair, and recoil at its foreign length. You’re about to give up on John (seriously, that guy is _never_ around when you need him) and try Rose when you get a reply.

**EB: um, I’m really sorry man, but I think you have the wrong handle. my name’s not john, it’s jason. **

“What the fuck,” you murmur aloud. The teal text makes you think of Terezi, but even she couldn’t screw with you like this. And John wasn’t as good of a prankster as he thought. He couldn’t pull this off either. Well, maybe he could. Especially when you’re freaked out as much as you are. But you mean, John wouldn’t pull this type of joke, it’s not lame enough.

Still…

**TG: you sure youre not fucking with me  
TG: because if you are i swear to jegus i will attack you with a shitty sword**

****EB: . . .  
EB: uh yeah. I’m pretty sure my name’s jason.  
EB: can you not attack me with a sword plz 

**TG: so just to clarify youre not john  
TG: youre some gamer douche right**

****EB: if you’re trying to troll, you’re doing a really bad job of it dude  
EB: but whatever I’m blocking you  
EB: kthxbai

**\-- ectoBiologist [** **EB** **] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [** **TG** **] at 11:36 -- **

Alright, yeah, that settled it. John would never say “kthxbai.” Though he would enjoy the ironic joke about trolling… You dismiss the idea. Someone else, this Jason idiot, has John’s chumhandle. You decide to try Rose after all, but just as you’re typing “tentacleTherapist” into the “add chum” section, there’s a knock on your bedroom door and then it opens.

“Hey, bro. You up and ready to go?”

Bro was standing at the door. Bro. Your adoptive brother, your – well, you don’t really want to consider right now that he’s your biological father. Bro’s alive, and standing at the door. There’s no sword in him, he’s got his shades, identical to the ones you wear, on his face as usual, and he looks completely unfazed, leaning against the doorframe. He _is_ the cool you hope to be.

You only realize now how much you’ve been ignoring your memories of Bro. You did miss him, you were lying through hurt and numbness when Terezi asked you if you’d loved him. Everyone needs someone, and when you were growing up, you had him. He was your parent and your brother and somehow your personal trainer, as well. Shit, you’d missed this guy.

You know he can’t see the tears pricking your eyes and you try your very hardest not to smile. You try to be casual, but you’re so confused and your emotions are all over the place like they never have been before. Somehow you manage to say, in a voice that just barely wavers, “Uh, go where?”

He catches it, you’re sure. He raises an eyebrow at you and you know that behind his shades he’s giving you an intense gaze with amber, almost orange eyes. He takes a step toward you and out of instinct, you tense, waiting for the strife to begin, but Bro seems unarmed. He just looks at you, and you blink as he reaches out and lowers your sunglasses.

“Are you high? What’ve you been doing in here?”

“Uh – I’m not high,” you mutter.

“Whatever.” He half-shoves your shades back onto your face. “But we’ve been talking about this and talking about this. You sure you’re not on something?”

You resist rolling your eyes at your now-not-dead-Bro. “No. I’m not,” you say with more confidence. “Can you just…refresh my memory? I think it’s been filled to the brim with too much irony.” Ain’t that the truth.

“California. We’re checking out another university this weekend. It’s the one that’s actually offering you a scholarship. Small, but still. You’ve got the week off from school for this, remember?”

“Oh, yeah, right,” you say, still having no idea. 

Bro pauses. “Are you even packed?”

“Uh.” You look around the room and spot a big red and black suitcase, zipped full to bursting, from what you can tell. “Of course I am.” You nod toward the suitcase.

Bro takes a look and nods in return. “Fine, kid. Just be ready, ‘cause I’m leaving in five minutes.”

You breathe out in relief as he leaves the room. You pull up the suitcase onto your bed and look inside. There’s a lot of stuff packed in it – clothes, a couple of pamphlets, a professional camera, a jacket, an extra pair of shoes and other things you guess would be good to take when visiting a college campus. As you think it, the thought seems absurd. But kind of…cool. Mature and adventurous. You’ll worry about talking to John and the girls later.

You dart around the room, finding your phone (a much better one than the one you had three, or is it four years ago) and an iPod, and you look around, still trying to see if _your_ shades are lying around somewhere. You can’t find them.

You figure you’re out of time, so you grab your suitcase and run out into the apartment as coolly as you can just as Bro is opening the front door. He lets you out first as he locks the door and you breathe out, trying to calm yourself. You’re not even sure what’s going on, or what world you’re in, but you try to be as casual as you can on your way to a college in California.

All you need right now is some time to breathe and figure out what the hell has driven you into this…alternate universe. Or the same universe, but something really weird has happened. _I’m the Knight of Time,_ you remind yourself. You should be able to figure this shit out.

Bro gives you a few strange looks on the car ride to the airport. The last time he does it, you finally demand, “What?”

He just shakes his head and turns back to the road. “Nothing.”

You’re willing to let it go, but apparently Bro isn’t, and a minute later, he elaborates, “You just seem…different. Kinda spacey.”

You look at him from your peripheral vision. “Different?” you repeat, wondering how you might go about explaining what you’re experiencing.

“Unfamiliar. Like you have no freaking clue what’s going on.”

To put it simply, that was completely true. So you have to make a decision: do you tell Bro about your sci-fi hell adventure through space and mysterious reappearance on Earth, or do you play along, pretend that no adventuring ever happened? God you wish you didn’t sound like such an idiot.


	3. Definitely Crazy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You decide to tell Bro. He’s your Bro, after all, and also your dad, but again you don’t want to get into that."
> 
> In which Dave becomes an almost-college student.

You decide to tell Bro. He’s your Bro, after all, and also your dad, but again you don’t want to get into that. He has to believe you, or there’s no one else who would. Well, besides John and the others. They would probably believe you, but they’re not here right now, and Jason wasn’t very friendly to you earlier, so Bro’s your only shot.

So you clear your throat a little. “Uh, Bro?”

“Yeah?” He doesn’t look away from the road, continuing to drive as he waits for you to speak in his usual stoic way.

“This is probably going to sound really fucking crazy, all right, but I need you to believe me.”

He doesn’t say anything, so you go on.

“Yesterday, I wasn’t…here. I don’t even know how I ended up here, back in Houston, or, uh, back on _Earth_.”

Now Bro gives you a brief look before returning complete attention to the road. You can tell he’s probably wondering about your earlier-denied drug use.

You rush to try to explain. “Take me seriously, okay? See, three years ago, John and Rose and Jade and I, we all started playing this piece of shit game called SBurb. And somehow, we were all sent into space, onto these different planets. Then we met these aliens – trolls – and we ended up separated into two groups since our game sessions were wrong. We were all going to travel to a new session that we helped to create, and we were going to be there pretty soon. But then I woke up and I was back here. So I’m kind of thinking that we got there and the new session was…reality, or some shit.”

Bro hesitates and an odd moment of silence passes. “Man, I fucking _told_ you not to drink so much AJ before bed. It used to give you weird dreams when you were a kid, too.”

“Wh-what?”  You’re too stunned by his reaction to repress your stutter.

“It’s the AJ or you’ve gone off the deep end,” Dirk said, raising an eyebrow. “You even made up your own characters in a dream.”

“What – John, and Rose, and…”

“Yeah. Them.” Bro’s eyes flick to the corners and you see him give you a weird look.

“You mean I’m – you don’t know—” You look so uncool right now, you know it. But the idea that Bro didn’t know John? I mean, I’d mentioned him a lot since I’d met him. And Bro had a good memory.

Bro sighed, just a gruff little breath released quietly. “Look, I know this is a hard time for you. You’re going to college soon, you’re away from home, and you have to move on. I get it. Not firsthand, I guess. Chose to be a parent rather than a college boy.”

You’re even more horrified. Bro _never_ liked to talk about the fact that he raised you. In all the time you were under his care (you know, since you crashed to earth on a meteor), Dirk had barely said a word about him being your guardian to your face. You know he had to deal with it for stuff like enrolling you in school and shit, but you and Bro had always had an understanding – you cared about each other, but you didn’t talk about it. It wasn’t cool.

“Maybe I just didn’t raise you right,” he mutters, so low you can barely hear, and you think you weren’t meant to. Usually, if Bro doesn’t want someone to hear something, he just wouldn’t say it. “I wanted to prepare you, but all I did was teach you how to dodge and stab.”

You think he’s done and you’re grateful – there’s too much going on for you to think about Bro having actual emotions he’s sharing and him not knowing John. Then he picks back up and you think you should have stayed in bed this morning.

“Mom and Dad would have known how to handle this.”

Your eyes nearly pop out of your skull. “ _What_? Mom and Dad?!” That’s it, Bro’s lost it. You never had _parents._ You were both dropped to earth on fucking meteors! Bro was your biological dad, and you guess Bro was just…Bro?

“Look, I know you think I’m like this…statue. Intimidating, silent and built for whatever’s thrown at me, but I was never prepared for this. I’ve been winging it since day one and I had to figure out how to wrap a diaper.” Bro keeps his eyes on the road and you know, despite whatever fuckery is going on that Bro is still sort of Bro and this is probably really hard for him to say.

“Well…uh… You’ve been a good parent,” you tell him awkwardly, never thinking you’d have to say that to him. Your mind is still reeling – _parents?_ – but you try to keep your mind in the here and now so that Dirk won’t turn around and take you to the hospital.

A little smile turns up the corner of Bro’s mouth. “Thanks, kid.” The action is so Bro that you’re momentarily relieved, but as Bro’s truck comes within sight of the airport, your heart starts to speed up. Despite being cool and looking all mature, you haven’t had to deal with anything this… _human_ since you were thirteen years old and still hoping that when you opened up the ‘fridge, you weren’t going to be attacked by a puppet.

Hold on. Puppets. Bro never went anywhere without—and you do mean everywhere. The grocery store, the post office, the bank; Bro had been given strange looks at all of them because of—

“Uh, Bro? Where’s ‘Lil Cal?” You do a quick check around the cab of Bro’s truck, but there’s no grey-faced puppet staring with glazed eyes.

Bro has just pulled into a long line for parking in front of the George Bush Intercontinental airport, and he takes the moment to look at you full-on, his shades low enough on his nose to show off the top of his orange irises that wonder what’s wrong with you.

“…who’s ‘Lil Cal?”

Your heart rate increases. You’re not wondering what’s wrong with you, you’re wondering what’s wrong with Bro.

“Y’know, ‘Lil Cal. Your definitely awesome and not creepy puppet-best-friend thing.”

Bro gives you a long look and in that moment the enormity of how fucked up everything is right now hits you. Wherever or whenever you are – whatever timeline or alternate universe you’re in right now – somehow everything is different. You had parents? Bro shows emotion? There’s no ‘Lil Cal? A thought strikes you that makes you feel cold all over. Bro doesn’t know who John is… What if John doesn’t exist?

You want to hyperventilate, but you force yourself to stay calm, clenching your jaw together in silent panic. Bro is looking increasingly stressed, as well.

The line starts to move again and Bro is forced to look away from you and drive forward slowly. You arrive at the curb in front of the terminal for drop-offs, and you shakily prepare to exit the cab of the truck. Before you can unlock the door to get out, however, Bro stops you.

“Hey, look…Dave.” He looks down at his lap. “I dunno what’s goin’ on with you, but you sound…pretty freaked. I know this is all big stuff. If…you wanna talk, call me, okay?”

You try to shrug off your emotions – yours and Bro’s. “Uh. Thanks, Bro.”

Bro just nods. “And I’ll call you later, when you should be on campus. You got your brochures?”

You nod, just trying to focus on coherent thought and real words.

“Okay. Get out of my truck.”

You actually manage to smile a bit, and you open your door. “See you, Bro.”

The terminal is crowded today. Seriously crowded. The last time you were around so many other living beings at one time, you were surrounded by nakodiles becoming a fucking billionaire. You don’t feel as hot as you did then, and you don’t mean because you were in the Land of Heat and Clockwork. You’re still cold, and you shiver a little despite the densely-packed space.

According to the plane ticket tucked in the front pocket of your suitcase, you board at one and arrive at five, time given for boarding and technical plane stuff, you assume.

You suddenly realize that you’re going to be very bored on this flight. Sure, sitting still and looking completely apathetic and cool is something you have down to an art form, but that doesn’t mean it’s entertaining.

You find an empty bench and take a seat, pulling your suitcase onto the bench next to you. You unzip it, hoping that whatever you want to take on the plane with you, you can put in your pockets. Luckily, you before you woke up in this timeline was smart, and packed a small backpack.

In it, you stuff your iPod, the college brochures to look at, and a laptop. You now have carry-on. You wish that you had something else to occupy yourself with, because doing nothing isn’t good for you. You start to think and the thinking leads to wondering and that leads to dreading. You don’t know what’s going on and that is always a horrible situation, as far as you’re concerned.

 

You don’t wait for very long to board. You file after everyone else in the line to your flight and find your seat. There’s a seat next to you, but no one takes it. Either there are no other single passengers on this flight, or no one wants to sit next to you. The second option isn’t completely dismissible – in the airport, there were tons of people and things to look at, but in these smaller quarters, you’re getting a lot of weird looks. It might be because you’re the only passenger under eighteen on this plane as far as you can see, but you’re ninety percent sure it’s the stupid anime shades. You seriously miss _your_ shades. The ones that John gave you. At least they had a semblance of normality.

Your plan, as soon as the plane was up in the air, had been to take out your iPod and check out any possible sick beats created by you, and then take out your laptop and try to contact one of the others. Hell, you’d even try the trolls’ handles, just in case. Not only was the situation terrifyingly sudden and confusing, but it was a little lonely to think that you could be the only one in it.

Your plan changes as soon as you open up the laptop. What if they really weren’t there? Any of them at all. You didn’t want to deal with any more Jasons. Sure, you’re feeling weird about this whole thing, but you’re on a plane for the first time in your life, independent, going to college… Maybe you should put off the disappointment of being alone in a weird timeline a little longer.

Instead you play Solitaire, the game of the lonely, and you draw a Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff comic, which you find to be a much easier feat with a desktop mouse than a laptop one. It starts out with your usual (or once-usual) bullshit nonsense content, but when at the end you launch Bro into space alone, you draw parallels and decide that Bro and Jeff just aren’t as funny to you three years after the last comic you drew.

You close the laptop and put it away, deciding to just chill the rest of the flight. You listen to your own tracks, which you have to admit are quite sick, and doze restlessly as you look out the window. Nothing fails to remind you of some stupid thing that happened back in the game. The bright blue sky is Skaia, you tell yourself. You don’t take any comfort in it. You never belonged in the Medium, or on Skaia, or even really on Derse. But now you don’t belong on Earth, either, living another Dave’s life.

It’s annoying to you that you’re suddenly so deep.

 

You land a little after five-thirty in Sacramento. From the airport, you take a taxi to the university, which is much closer than you’d expected, and the cabbie knows exactly where he’s going.

The ride doesn’t cost much and you’re relieved when you hand over your fare and a tip and get out of the car with your baggage. There are other kids and their parents all over the lawn of the university, milling around or grinning excitedly at the college and their peers. You’re not impressed.

Maybe it’s just because you’ve never been an architecture buff, or maybe it’s because there’s been a lot more to be impressed at today, you don’t give the tall (maybe Gothic styled – like you said, you’re not an architecture buff) buildings more than a once-over.

There’s no one immediately at the gates of the place to meet you, so you pull out your invitational brochure the college had apparently sent you after you’d sent in your application. You were assigned to dorm D.

You thought dorms were supposed to have more impressive names. Like, the names of impressive people that would therefore make the dorm impressive. “Dormitory D” seemed kind of generic. But whatever, you guess it’s not your place to assume anything about college. Mentally, you’re still a year younger and on a meteor.

You are in a large courtyard with those little blocks of land where tiny trees are planted and a large fountain in the middle. There is a large concentration of people in front of a building to your left, a pale yellow brick building styled like all of those around you in an ornate, almost gaudily fancy way. It’s almost identical to the building across the courtyard from it except in color, including the crowd in front of it. The second building is built from a more purplish brick with black trim. It’s not any grimmer looking than the other for its looks, but the aura of the people surrounding it seems a bit more subdued than that of the others.

People begin to shuffle away down a path between the largest building directly in front of you and the yellowish building now that a gate has been moved aside. You don’t hear the announcement made by someone you assume works at the school, but people closer to him seem interested, and many abandon their posts by the colorful buildings to follow him down the path.

You take advantage to step toward the closer building, the purple one, and a large plaque beside black double doors reads simply, “D.” You take that to mean that it’s Dormitory D, so you head on inside.

You’re honestly quite impressed with yourself. You’re not intimidated at all by being on a college campus and it makes you feel like a bad ass. Which is a great feeling. Being able to be so human again has been confusing, but it’s also refreshing and empowering, and you decide to try to keep to that feeling for right now.

The inside of the D dorm, it’s cool. Almost chilly. Combined with the already cool weather of northern California, at least compared to the Houston weather you’ve grown up with, you have a few goosebumps on your arms.

As you walk in, a girl of petite build with long red hair is being led up the stairs to the left by a tall man in all black and a ball cap, startlingly white against the room and the rest of his outfit. You already have a couple of snippy comments forming in your head as he climbs out of sight.

There is no one else in the lobby/common room of the dorm, but there is a service desk with a bell that instructs that you ring for service, and you comply with a bit of apprehension.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” says a voice from behind a door labeled _STAFF_. The guy sounds highly irritated, like you’ve bothered him in the middle of his favorite soap. You just shift your light backpack and wait.

After a minute, a man emerges from the back room. He’s about the same height as you, and almost as pale as you. If it weren’t for the jet-black hair slicked back under his ball cap and his cold, steel-gray eyes, you might suspect that he was an albino like you. He, like the other guy you just saw tromp up the stairs, is wearing all black – a rather proper complete suit, in this case. His ball cap is hilariously contradictory to the rest of his demeanor, white with light blue trim. In bright blue letters is written, “Welcome, Freshmen!” and a smiling sun sits underneath it. But these are certainly not the man’s most defining qualities, and in fact, when you first see him, you suppress a gasp. A long scar runs through his right eye, from just above his eyebrow to the top of his cheek. His right arm is gone from the middle of the bicep down. An overly-cheery “Hello; My name is” tag reads “Mr. Noir.”

You swallow quietly, and, quickly forming a lame plan, you mouth off. “Your hat says ‘welcome,’ but your expression says ‘die,’” you inform him.

Noir narrows his eyes and scowls, and you hope he’s not about to attack you with a knife. You hope your plan was as good as it was when you were thinking it up. If Noir remembers everything like you do, and you’ve just insulted him, he’s going to attack you like no fucking tomorrow, blades whirring as your limbs go flying. Or at least insult you back. But if he, like Bro, doesn’t know anything, then he’ll make a passive aggressive counter and do his job.

“The hat is part of the uniform,” he says through clenched teeth. “Now can I help you?” He sounds like he wants to do anything but.

You find yourself almost disappointed that an arch nemesis of yours and once-demon-dog thing you feared doesn’t remember the same past you do. It would be nice, even if he still wanted to kill you. Well, he probably did now, due to your comment, but that didn’t matter.

“Uh, yeah. The brochure just told me to come here,” you tell him, and you offer him the brochure tentatively.

He rolls his eyes and snatches it from you. His intense eyes flick over the slick paper and then to his computer. “Strider,” he mutters, entering your name into the computer. “Dorm 307,” he concludes. “Come with me.”

Noir pushes the brochure back at you with his good arm and walks around the desk. He leads you to the staircase on the right.

“The stairs on the left are the girls’ dorm, don’t go up without invitation. Lobby closes at eleven PM.” He shudders, and you lift an eyebrow, about four steps behind him. “Each floor has a communal bathroom and a small kitchen.”

You lug your suitcase up two flights of stairs and reach the third floor while Noir speaks as if he could just die with boredom and spite. He grumbles to himself while you trudge to 307. He pulls out a key from his pocket and you wonder briefly when he’d even retrieved that, but shrug it off.

Noir walks in first and you follow. You’re surprised. The room is a single. There’s a large naked window, no curtains or anything to block cheerful afternoon light. One bed takes up most of the left side of the room, and there’s a desk and a small closet to the right. You have room for turntables, you notice, but decide not to get too carried away, especially until you can make sure that you get curtains.

“It’s a single?” you ask as casually as you can manage, but it’s strange talking to Jack Noir, and stranger being anything like casual with him.

“Yeah,” Noir deadpans. “The third, fifth and seventh floors are all singles.”

You raise your eyebrows slightly. “Big building.”

“Sure. Anyway, I’m Mr. Noir, the dorm manager. I’ll be available if you have a problem or something, so don’t have any problems. Get settled in, and then go to the gymnasium for the stupid…welcome expo or whatever the hell it is. You’ll get your temporary schedule there and meet your… _sophomore buddy_.” He says the words with loathing.

“Can I not?” you ask, not to be rude, just because you’d rather have some time alone. Maybe work up the guts to try to get back on Pesterchum. You need to call Bro, too; he said he’d be calling you but he hadn’t yet.

“Tch.” The noise sounds almost like a laugh. “I don’t blame you. I guess you could wait a while ‘til the crowd dies down. But you might miss out on good classes. Your sophomore might not wait around, either. Just do what you want.”

Before you can say anything else, Noir leaves the dorm, shutting the door behind him. You sigh a little. You decide to use the time unpacking to figure out what you want to do. You’d still like to have some quiet, but you don’t want to miss out on getting the sweet classes. If you end up with some kind of medieval…art class or something, you’re not sure the irony would be enough to keep you in good spirits. Plus, maybe you should be doing _everything_ now, and let the suddenness of everything strange that’s happened process with you later. You momentarily curse your spontaneous nature and throw your backpack on the bed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So does Dave wait around and end up taking medieval art, or does he go down now and swipe up the good classes?
> 
> I'm hoping to be able to get chapters out faster than this in the future. u_u I'll be taking votes/whatever until Wednesday.


	4. Old Friends in New Places

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You decide that you’re going to go to the welcome thing – scoop up the sweet-ass classes while you’ve got the chance. You can mope and worry later."
> 
> In which Dave gets dragged around by a blind girl.

Your suitcase empty and your things in the dresser at the end of your bed, you decide that you’re going to go to the welcome thing – scoop up the sweet-ass classes while you’ve got the chance. You can mope and worry later. 

Noir left the key in the door of the dorm for you, so you take the key and lock your dorm behind you, then stick the key in your pocket as you walk down to the courtyard with only your brochure in your hands. The name of your “sophomore buddy” was on there somewhere, but you hadn’t sifted through it thoroughly enough to find it. You figure you’ll go down and check things out before finding your tour guide. 

The courtyard between the dorms and the big building that you’re guessing belongs to administration or something is mostly empty now. A few people roam, kids going to their new dorms, parents going back to their cars. 

The little trail between the yellow dorm building and the administrative building is just a little paved walkway, and you follow it out into a much larger courtyard. This one is about as long as a football field and another two wide. All around it are more buildings, probably ones holding classes, and the little trees that are apparently required for all courtyards.

The courtyard would seem even bigger if there weren’t a thousand people in it. Booths are set up all around the perimeter and in a smaller square inside with the ones that don’t fit just scattered around and in between, making it look sort of like a marketplace for middle-class American families shopping for math classes. 

You sigh coolly at all the noise and people and begin making your way to the first booth with a sign high enough to see over the crowd reading _Welcome!_ You think that’s probably a good place to start. Check shit out.

Just in front of the booth, you lose your footing and you jostle someone. They almost fall over, but right themselves and turn around to face you. 

“Hey! Watch it!” 

Your eyes widen. The voice. Her hair’s the same, just a different color, different skin color, different glasses… Normally you’d assume you were seeing things, but not today. 

_“Terezi_?” you ask, shocked. 

She’s certainly not a troll, but it’s definitely Terezi. Her hair is golden blonde, her skin a light peach and the red glasses she’s always worn (despite having had her vision back for quite some time, back on the meteor) are black, and her teeth aren’t sharp. She’s human. 

“What?” She crinkles her eyebrows. “Uh, no. It’s Teresa.” Behind her glasses, her unseeing eyes narrow in scrutiny. “Do I know you?” 

You quickly open your brochure and read as fast as you possibly can through it while Terezi – Teresa – watches you impatiently, and you reach a paragraph about finding your sophomore guide. _Teresa Pyrope. Found at the welcome booth._ Damn.

“You’re my sophomore guide,” you tell her, holding up your brochure. You hope that’s enough to cover up the way you’d said her name, with surprise and recognition. A moment later, you realize – you dumbass – that she’s blind. You groan internally at your stupidity. “Teresa Pyrope?” you ask, and you know that her hearing’s excellent. She can probably hear the exasperation and hopelessness. 

“Oh, yeah. You’re Dave, then?” she asks, much less suspicious and angry now, and you think that maybe she’s just ignoring how awkward you sound. You need to figure out how to be cool again like now. 

“Yeah. Dave Strider.” Teresa holds a hand out and you take it before she takes it back. 

“Nice to meet you, I guess, Strider! You’re not very good in crowds, are you?” she guesses.

“Not used to them,” you admit, which is a serious understatement. You haven’t been around a group larger than seven in three years.

“Okay, we’ll start looking around soon so you can pick classes and then we’ll explore. I just gotta…um…” She moves about around the crowd as if she’s looking for someone. But from her expression, you think she’s actually listening for them. “Oh, here he—come on,” she orders, and she grabs your hand.  
You have to admit that her hand in yours makes you a bit nostalgic, but it also puts a tugging in the pit of your stomach that you’ve grown to associate with John. You try to shake it off.

You and Teresa get closer to the welcome booth, where sophomores like her – all wearing bright blue and white t-shirts – are working with kids and parents, directing to different booths. 

Teresa lets go of your hand. “Karver – Kar!” 

“What?!” A redheaded kid behind the booth looks up at us, looking pissed. He gives you a curious glance, then steps to Teresa’s side and takes her hand, probably to let her know where he is. 

“There you are!” Teresa says excitedly. “Look, my kid showed up!”

She takes your hand again, showing you off to the guy. He’s got dark reddish hair, pale skin and brown eyes, but it’s unmistakably Karkat. The shadows under his eyes and the way he constantly grimaces is the same. His hair takes the same messy shape. 

“Lucky,” Karver mutters. “Mine still hasn’t shown up! What, is she going to be the _last kid_ to get here?!” 

“Aw, good luck, Kar. I gotta show this one around.” She ducks in to kiss him on the cheek and is slightly off-mark, kissing closer to his nose. 

Half of his mouth actually turns up in a little smile, then he realizes what she said. “Wait!”

“Bye!” she lets go of his hand and starts leading you. 

“No – Teresa!” Karver calls from behind you. “You’re supposed to – you’re supposed to take someone with you! _You can’t fucking see_!” 

In front of you, Teresa just chuckles and continues to lead. “Always a charmer.”

“Who, Karkat?” You laugh at the idea of Karkat charming anyone. 

“Karkat?” Teresa laughs, too. “Cute nickname. Weird. I’ve gotta try that out sometime.” 

You stop by the edge of the courtyard near one of the tiny trees, where there are fewer people. Teresa lets go of you and turns to face you. 

“So, any idea what you wanna study?” she asks. “You’ve got five classes. It’s not permanent, obviously, just classes for your week here. You get to sit in and stuff. What are you interested in?”

“Music,” you tell her, thinking it would be awesome to get the chance to maybe show off, just a little bit in a music class. “And…science?”

“What kind of science?” she asks. “Biology, chemistry…?”

“Space. Like, astronomy,” you say, smirking a little at the irony human Terezi doesn’t understand. 

“Oh, cool. I think that class is over there, by Aradia…” 

“Aradia?” you ask, surprised. Aradia was a troll, too…why did she get to keep her name?

“Yeah, a friend of mine. Over here, I think.” 

She doesn’t grab you again, but you follow her to a big red booth. 

“Aradia?” Teresa asks upon reaching it. There’s a girl there with tanned skin and really long curly black hair and brown eyes, looking miserable. She stretches her hand out to  
Teresa to tap her on the shoulder.

“Right here, Teresa,” she supplies. 

“Cool. Do you have the astronomy-planetary-science-thing class? My kid here wants it.”

_My kid_ again? You get the idea that these sophomore trolls really like having a job. 

“Yeah…we’ve still got a couple of spots left,” Aradia says, flipping through a folder. “What’s your name?” she asks me.

“Dave—”

“Dave Strider!” Teresa tells her, sounding almost proud.

“Okay…” She finds a few numbers and writes them next to my name, then hands me a card with the course title and the long chain of numbers on it. “There you go, Dave.” She tries to smile, but she still sounds dismal.

“What’s the matter?” Teresa asks Aradia, and half of her mouth curves down in an inquisitive look. 

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Aradia sighs. “I’m just a little…disappointed, I guess. No one wants to sign up for my classes! Besides astronomy, I have paleontology and of course archaeology.” She looks at you and explains, “That’s my major – archaeology. I was hoping I’d get to meet a lot of freshmen who wanted to take it, even if it was just because they wanted to be Indiana Jones.” Aradia rolls her eyes. “I’d be okay with that. But both classes are nearly empty.”

“Don’t worry! There are plenty of brats running around today. I’m sure one of them likes to dig and stuff.” 

“Yeah, thanks, Teresa…” Aradia still didn’t sound convinced. 

“Actually, uh, I’m interested in paleontology,” you speak up, thinking of all the dead things in your bedroom back on LOHAC. Or, just your bedroom in this timeline. “Dead things are cool.” 

Aradia’s eyes light up. “They definitely are! Do you – you want to take the class?” 

“Yeah, that’d be awesome.” You give her a small smile. 

She grinned. “I could kiss you but Sol would try to kick your ass and most likely just get seriously injured in the process!”

You raise your eyebrows. “It’s all right, I can feel the love.” 

“Great! Okay!” Aradia repeated the process with my name and all the numbers on a different sheet and handed me a different card. You give it a bemused look: she obviously took a lot more time decorating this one than the astronomy card. The other one had a couple of squiggly circles meant to be planets and a couple of typical yellow five-point stars, but the paleontology card had little dinosaurs and bugs on it, with the title of the course in a creative-looking font. 

“Did you make the archaeology card as cool as this one?” you ask teasingly, showing her the card again. 

“Oh, do you think it’s cool? Yeah, I guess I kinda showed my bias, huh?” She giggles lightly and holds up another card, this one decorated just as brightly as yours.

“Alright, fossil freaks, we’ve gotta get going if I’m going to keep Strider on schedule!” Teresa interrupts. 

You glance at her, wondering what she’s on to get her so hyped. 

“You’re probably right… Good luck finding your other classes, Dave! I’ll see you later, Teresa!” She waves at you. 

“Yep! Thanks, Aradia!” Obviously worried you’re going to stay and continue to chat with Aradia, Teresa skips all implications of gentleness and grabs for your upper arm, her red-painted fingernails biting into your arm through your t-shirt. 

“Bye,” you call back to Aradia, feeling very rushed by Teresa and actually rather smothered. Overwhelmed, even. But you think that might have something to do with the fact that your alien friends suddenly don’t remember you. And are suddenly not aliens.

“So, music classes, now, right?” Teresa asks. 

“Uh – yeah… You can slow down you know,” you inform her as you push through another small crowd of people clustered around a large gold booth for computer engineering.  
Teresa hears you and waits for a moment before letting go and turning to you. “Sorry, Dave. Guess I’m just excited for this. It’s cool to be able to help someone who has absolutely no idea what they’re doing while you have all the answers.”

You suddenly remember the nakodiles and your brief stint as a boondollar billionaire on LOHAC. Not to mention…she’s blind. Being someone’s eyes in an unfamiliar place probably gives her a sense of secondhand sight. You guess it’s just Terezi’s thing, wanting to feel superior while helping.

“It’s okay. Just take it easy.” 

Suddenly, Teresa grins mischievously. “Ah… You’re a coolkid, aren’t you?”

You shrug, dismissing her blindness. “Yeah. I’m pretty cool.” 

Her grin widens. “Interesting… Remind me to challenge you to a dance-off sometime.”

You can’t help it. You smile, too. If the one constant in this confusing situation is Terezi’s stupid fascination with your undeniable coolness and irony, you figure you can work this out somehow. You at least wouldn’t mind staying in this timeline or whatever long enough for a dance-off or a drawing contest. 

“I’ll remind you.” 

“Sweet. So, music classes?” 

“Music classes,” you confirm. 

At a more leisurely pace that you appreciate, Teresa leads you to a booth painted bright indigo. There are a few people milling around or leaving the booth, and behind it stands a tall, lanky kid with unruly curly black hair and dark skin. His face, except the areas around his eyes and mouth are painted white, and you determine that he does indeed look too into the clown look for it to be ironic. Emphasizing this are the black and gray polka-dotted pajama pants he wears. Damn it, Gamzee. 

At least he doesn’t look murderously psychotic right now, you think, even if he does look just as high. 

He greets you with a lazy smile on his painted face, his dark, almost black eyes heavily lidded. “Hey, motherfuckers. How’s it going?” 

You notice that Teresa’s jaw tightens and one of her hands clenches. But she says with absolute friendliness, “Hey, Garrett. Just wanna sign Coolkid Dave here up for a music class.”

“Sweet,” Gam—uh—Garrett approves with a slow nod. “What’re you lookin’ for? What’s your beat, man?”

“Are you asking if I like to drop ill rhymes?” Despite the bitterness and caution you’ve regarded Gamzee with since hearing about his blackrom relationship with Terezi (oh, and the two people he killed, them too), you try to lightly tease. You’ve heard the dude rap before, and even if he’s a lunatic, he’s pretty good. Karkat told you a couple times that he and his friend…uh, the paraplegic one, used to rap like there was no tomorrow. You’ve considered more than once that if he wasn’t such an asshole, you might have gotten along okay.

“Hell yeah, bro. You like rap? We’ve got a class for a slam poetry-rap kind of scene, and a club for our own beats. Our rhymes are only the illest.” 

You’re pretty sure “illest” isn’t a word, but whatever, you catch his drift. “Awesome. I’ll have to drop by sometime. Make sure you guys are cool.” 

Garrett’s smile widens. “I like you, bro. Drop by anytime.”

“I’m so glad you guys are friends,” Teresa says, and there’s an undertone to her voice that tells you she’s anything but. “Except we’re kind of trying to get Dave the best classes right now, so maybe you can just sign him up for your poetry thing and we’ll leave?”

“No problem,” Gamzee says lackadaisically. “I got you.” 

Like Aradia, he takes out a little card, this one with an indigo clown stamp on it, and hands it to you. Then he writes a number next to your name in his folder, and you wonder why they don’t do this by computer. 

“See you soon, motherfucker,” Garrett says in parting as Teresa starts leading you away by your forearm. 

“Ugh,” she groans, obviously just wanting to leave.

“So I take it you guys aren’t BFFs,” you say drily. You’re surprised you’re not bitter.

You can practically sense her rolling her eyes. “No. We had a…thing, once, but it was short-lived. That guy’s a stoner and a psycho. No matter how much you like your under-the-weather rhythms, I’d stay away from him if I were you. You might end up chopped into tiny pieces in his freezer.”

You think it’s more likely he’d store your body in the refrigerator and attempt to sell your blood, but you don’t want to say that. 

“Anyway. You can get two more classes, so what’ll it be, Dave?” Teresa manages to get a smile back on her face as she slows down and releases your arm. Your pale skin has red marks on it from her tight grip. 

You tell her you don’t care much, and she grins widely. “Excellent!”

You’re grateful that she keeps her claws to herself, and you follow her to a less crowded part of the courtyard where a simple white booth stands. You wonder if they didn’t get the memo about all the colorful booths. 

“Mr. Mayer, Mr. Mayer!” Terezi yells out, waving madly. 

There’s not much of a crowd, but a couple of people standing nearby at the booth shuffle away. 

“Yes, yes, Teresa? I—I’m over here!” A small man emerges through the people, standing at the booth. He’s short with skin like shining ebony and dressed in a proper tan suit. His face is friendly and his eyes sparkle happily. 

“What did I tell you, Mr. Mayer? I told you I’d still help you get students! Here’s one!”

You try to keep a smile off of your face as you realize: it’s the fucking mayor. _The mayor!_ No way…no fucking way... You’ve always wondered what it would be like if the mayor could talk. Of course, it would probably be better if he knew who you were, which, from the polite expression on his face when he looks at you, you can tell he doesn’t. But you’re slowly getting used to that. This is so weird. But if you forget everything else, this is kind of a weird cool.

“Well hello!” Mr. Mayer greeted me with a kind smile. “It’s very nice to meet you…?”

“Dave. Strider.” You smile back at him and take his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, too.” You resist the urge to request for a high five. 

“Dave’s gonna take the criminal justice class!” Teresa cheers. 

“I am?” you ask. 

“Yes! That’s what we’re signing you up for. It’s my major, and the only class is mine, so you’ll get to sit in on my class! I’ll save you a seat.” She grins impossibly wider and gives you a wink from behind her shades. 

The professor just chuckles. “All right, Mr. Strider, I’ll sign you up. Miss Pyrope, make sure you’re still paying attention when Dave visits.”

“Of course I’ll be paying attention! I’ve gotta learn how to orchestrate the demise of the wicked somehow, right?” 

Oh yeah. Terezi’s justice thing. You forgot how intense she could get about that with all the juggalo shit she’d had going on. Now you just find it kind of endearing if not intimidating. It’s been a long time since you’ve even seen Terezi smile. 

Mr. Mayer hands you a card with little pillars and a gavel printed on the sides and gives you a smile, turning back to listen to Terezi jabber on. But another voice cuts through the air and catches your attention.

“That sounds great! We should definitely do that!”

Your head whips around at the familiar voice. It’s deeper than the last time you heard it, but…you’re positive. Your heart rate increases with your excitement. 

You hear a man’s laugh. “Well all right, John. We’ll do a weekend-long marathon when you get back.”

“Popcorn?”

“Of course, son.” 

You search for the voices in the crowd, but there are too many people wandering around. Finally you catch sight of a rather tall man in a fedora beside a raven-haired boy just shorter than him. Your eyes widen.

“Uh, Terez—Teresa, I have to—stay here okay, I’ll be back.” You tap her arm and start walking away.

“Wait—Where’re you going, Coolkid?! You still have to—” Her voice disappears as you distance yourself, pushing gently as you can muster through the crowd with muttered apologies. 

Eventually there’s a large gap in the crowd, but at the pace you’ve been taking, you’ll never reach him before he and his father reach the yellow brick dorm where they’re heading. 

You give up and go for it. “John!” you call out. “ _John_!”

Seeming confused, the guy turns around and yeah – that’s definitely John. Older than you’ve ever seen him, but you _have_ seen him and just wow. You take in a quick little breath. 

Your heart’s thumping so quickly you’re feeling lightheaded. John sees you and looks at you with wide, curious eyes.  
His dad says something to him and John shrugs and shakes his head, then replies. You’re sure he’s going to turn around and keep walking, but to your surprise, he starts walking toward you. 

John offers you a little smile. “Hi! Sorry, but, um, do I know you?” He looks sheepishly friendly, as if he’s embarrassed not to have recognized you on sight. Yeah, well, he should be. You’re his goddamn best bro. You realize you’d still had hope that maybe…well maybe he’d remember you. Another human that’d gone through the game with you and hadn’t gone through species transformation. But whatever.

You open your mouth. Then shut it again. Idiot, you haven’t thought of anything to say yet. Just be cool. 

“Uh—I—” _Not cool, abort_. You look down and back up very quickly, hoping he doesn’t notice how flustered you are but your face is on fire. Still, with any luck your shades hide most of the red. 

You start over. “No. Sorry, I had you confused with somebody else.” Cool, okay. You now look offhanded and totally casual. Probably.

John’s expression becomes confused, but he continues to smile. “But…you knew my name.” 

Damn it. That’s right. Oh my god you’re so stupid. 

“John’s a pretty common name.” _Ha!_ Take that Egbert. 

John laughs. “I guess that’s a good point.” He offers a hand. “I’m John Egbert. It’s great to meet you!”

“Dave Strider.” You can’t help but feel nostalgia as you take his hand and remember the first time you ever talked. You thought he was so dorky and he thought you were a jerk. You guess that hasn’t changed except maybe that you fell for the dorkiness anyway. 

“Wow, that’s a really cool name!” He grins. “Like a comic book character or something. Hey…are you secretly a superhero?” John gives you a jokingly suspicious look as he retracts his hand and crosses his arms seriously. 

“What?”

“You know. Superheroes get the best names! Tony Stark, Bruce Wayne, James Howlett…”

“Yeah, and then there’s Dick Grayson.” 

John bursts out laughing and you can’t help but smile. You’ve been smiling a lot today, despite the circumstances.

“Okay, fine, you win again.” John recovers from his laughter and is giving you one of the most genuine dorky smiles ever.  
You indulge your secretly (so so secret) _cheesy_ ironic side and decide against your better judgment to humor him.

“Well…if you have to know, I really do have a superhero identity. Costume and everything.”  
John looks at you first with amazement and then incredulity. “No way. You’ve even made your own costume?”

“Something like that.” You try to shift your weight nonchalantly and nearly stumble. 

“What’s your name then? It’d better not be the Striderman or something.”

For the first time since you started bumping into alt-timeline friends, you feel and speak solemnly. There’s too much about the game you can’t joke about without feeling a little sullen. 

“The Knight of Time.”

John pauses, considering. “It’s kinda long, don’t you think?” Then he opens his mouth in bemused shock. “Oh my god. You—” he chuckles “—you could be _Knighttime_.” He goes right back to laughing again.

You stay stoic. “Never heard that one before.” As if Terezi and Karkat and even a drunken Rose hadn’t given you crap for it already. 

“John?” 

John looks back at his dad. “Just a minute, Dad!” Turning back to you, he offers you another genuine grin. “Sorry, Dave, I gotta get back to my dad. But…I’ll see you around?”

There’s a pink in his cheeks that makes your heart flutter. “Yeah. See you.” 

“Great! It was really, really nice to meet you!” He tosses a wave your way before hurrying back to his father.

You raise a hand that he doesn’t see. Then you sigh.

You’re feeling particularly worn down now. Extremely tired, emotionally pained, and, you realize, seriously hungry. When was the last time you ate anything? Not since you’ve been in this timeline. Usually you roll out of these things by now, though. You don’t normally worry about taking provisions with you in a dream bubble. 

You’ve still gotta go find Teresa before you can go back to the dorm. Or…maybe you could get Karkat – Karver, or whatever – to do it. He’s her boyfriend, right? You’re closer to the welcome booth than the law booth. You could get him and go crash before finding food. Bro should be calling soon anyway… But you still need a fifth class… Ugh, you don’t know. Your head’s too muddled to make decisions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took SO long to post. Honestly it's been mostly laziness/lack of motivation. :( But I've been re-inspired so hopefully the next chapter won't be far behind!
> 
> So does Dave go back to Teresa or check in early and hope she gets him a good 5th class? I'll take suggestions for about a week but I might end up writing the next chapter this weekend so~


End file.
